Presidential debate tonight at 9PM ET from Ole Miss

As of 11:30am eastern on Friday, Sen. McCain has confirmed he WILL be attending the debate tonight at 9pm ET with Sen. Obama. The debate will be aired on every major broadcast network and all cable news channels. You can also find online streams at any major news network website. The debate is being broadcast from the University of Mississippi located in Oxford, MI.

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Live blogging begins at 8:45pm eastern time right here:

No need to refresh, the commentary is live and we’ll be taking your comments throughout the entire debate…

You Decide 2008 will have the entire, unedited debate video uploaded once the debate airs in case you miss it want to watch it again.

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The story broke minutes ago that Sen. McCain will indeed be traveling to Mississippi this afternoon to participate in the debate, Politico reports:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) announces: “The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the senator will travel to the debate this afternoon. Following the debate, he will return to Washington to ensure that all voices and interests are represented in the final agreement, especially those of taxpayers and homeowners.

Word is that debate moderator Jim Lehrer will open with question on the economic bail out plan and current issues before proceeding to foreign policy issues.

Update 1:48PM ET

Video report from the Associates Press on McCain’s decision from the debate location:

Video report from Fox News on McCain’s shift:

A dramatic shift from 24 hours ago when the debate was in question. The next issue will be whether McCain was helped or hurt by this entire process. We shall see tonight how things transpire at the debate if his questions on the bail out plan are solid and whether Obama can turn the tables on that issue.

Tonight’s format:

1. First Presidential Debate:
Date: September 26 â€“ Site: University of Mississippi â€“ Topic: Foreign Policy & National Security â€“ Moderator: Jim Lehrer â€“ Staging: Podium debate â€“ Answer Format: The debate will be broken into nine, 9-minute segments. The moderator will introduce a topic and allow each candidate 2 minutes to comment. After these initial answers, the moderator will facilitate an open discussion of the topic for the remaining 5 minutes, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment

Update 3:40PM ET:

Video from Fox News with some nostalgic debate videos and predictions for tonight:

The historical “Do’s and Don’ts” of past presidential debates via the CBS Early Show:

Sorry for the hours of downtime, our traffic crashed the server cluster. We’ve been upgraded to a private luxury cluster so we should be up and running for the night! Comments will not immediately show up as we’re on a special caching system until capacity is fully restored. We will be live blogging in this post around 8:45pm eastern.